Re: Teacher qualifications

September 21, 2004

>She was also a parent to a child

with autism and told me that nothing in

her education had prepared her to work with a child with autism.

So what federal law are you referring to?<

The spring before last a graduate student took the Special Ed exit exam, and

said there was not one question about autism. That is unbelievable considering

the numbers of children with autism in Texas classrooms. If there is an

education expert on here please advice us what to do. Could going in numbers

or writing letters to the Commissioner prompt change, or contacting the deans of

the Universities? Something does need to change and it needs to be a

requirement that all students in Special Education get an adequate number of

hours in Autism. This is a recommendation of the Interagency Council on Autism

but they said at the Town Meeting at the Conference that is important that we

contact our legislators, so maybe that is how to get the mandate for educating

the educators in autism.

September 27, 2004

" ...I've met two special ed teachers recently who have never heard of ABA. I

was shocked. One had been teaching in Dallas ISD for 20 years. Both worked

with autistic children. "

Lori

Actually, as a former teacher that doesn't surprise me at all!!!! We tend

to have a belief that the most experienced, those with the most time in place,

must know more than everyone else about what they're doing.

However, most teachers in moderate or larger school districts tend to get

all of their yearly professional growth hours through the school district they

work for. It's easily available, close, free, and tailored to the schedules

of local ISD staff. If the school district doesn't value ABA and never

offers it, the teacher can be clueless in spite of their best efforts at

staying

up to date. The teachers who were students too long ago to have heard of ABA

in college might not be exposed to it until their school hires someone young

and just out of college to work on their team. If that new teacher went to a

university that doesn't value ABA, no luck there.

If " Newbie " was positively exposed to ABA, there can be blocks if she/he

even teaches in a higher or lower grade level than our 20 year veteran. There

is little or no time allowed for communication between the grades at many

schools and it can take ages for proper info and practice to disseminate.

ly, the longer a teacher is from their college years, the more out of date

they become despite their best intentions. Being quite thoroughly human, a few

of them can be quite set in their ways, and don't LIKE to try new things.

They can also have an attitude of paternal trust in the districts they work

for, too, and view new ideas that don't come from " above " with a jaundiced eye!

[Yeah, let's see " Newbie " try that in a REAL classroom, she'll drop all that

silly ABA stuff when she falls flat on her face... " ]

If your school district has a policy of site based management, you can

really be in luck if you snag the principal and get them to a

seminar/presentation. Principals who are fired up about a new idea they've

been exposed to, tend

to push everyone under them to get trained in it. They also tend to spread

the word to their principal friends and district level coordinators, who do

the same. How does that quote go, " If I had a lever and a place to stand, I

could move the world? " Principals and district level coordinators can be a

lever for more rapid and thorough change. Or, to change horses in mid-stream,

" It's easier to roll a boulder down a hill, than to roll it up! "

OUCH, sorry, I just couldn't make myself stop!

Sandi

September 27, 2004